Methods and systems for virtual collaboration

ABSTRACT

Various embodiments of the present technology provide an online and/or offline meeting system that utilizes a “scene” as a collaboration context and/or for collecting and grouping related multimedia based messages exchanged in discussions, and causes the related messages to be presented to participants of an online and/or offline meeting in a cinematic way. When an online meeting is over and the meeting session is ended, participants can still make offline communications using the scene as the collaboration context. Further, the present technology improves user experience in viewing or annotating non-text based content in a chat session.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to U.S. Non-Provisional applicationSer. No. 14/846,793, filed Sep. 6, 2015, and U.S. ProvisionalApplication No. 62/046,952, filed Sep. 6, 2014, the disclosure of whichis incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND

Email and chat are good to pass around text and multimedia basedcontents with a group of people. However, email and chat do not bring awhiteboard based face-to-face experience for discussions with multipleparticipants. On the other hand, some online meeting applications offera shared whiteboard with multiple supported document formats but requireparticipants to join in the meeting online at a scheduled time.

Further, users desire for better experiences in sharing non-text basedcontent on a text-based chat platforms.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and otheradvantages and features of the disclosure can be obtained, a moreparticular description of the principles briefly described above will berendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which areillustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawingsdepict only exemplary embodiments of the disclosure and are nottherefore to be considered to be limiting of its scope, the principlesherein are described and explained with additional specificity anddetail through the use of the accompanying drawings in which:

FIGS. 1A-1E illustrates examples of scene based collaboration inaccordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of inputting chat message in accordancewith various embodiments:

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of context menu when a context window istouched by a user in accordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of adding a tag on a virtual whiteboard inaccordance with various embodiments:

FIG. 5 illustrates two example tags in accordance with variousembodiments;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example process of managing scenes in a sessicn inaccordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 7 illustrates an example process of managing resources within asession in accordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 8A illustrates an example scene-based collaboration with a timelinein accordance with various embodiments;

FIGS. 8B-8D illustrates example scene-based collaborations using a chatcompositor in accordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 9 illustrates an example of two or more session layers inaccordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 10 illustrates an example scene based collaboration with one ormore email and chat participants in accordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 11 illustrates an example of a virtual collaboration system 1110for detecting and recognizing objects and/or features in an image inaccordance with various embodiments;

FIGS. 12A and 12B illustrate front and back views, respectively, of anexample electronic computing device 1200 that can be used in accordancewith various embodiments;

FIG. 13 illustrates a set of basic components of an electronic computingdevice 1300 such as the device 1200 described with respect to FIG. 12;

FIG. 14 illustrates an example of an environment 1400 for implementingaspects in accordance with various embodiments FIG. 14 illustrates anexample of an environment 1400 for implementing aspects in accordancewith various embodiments; and

FIG. 15 illustrates an exemplary method of providing a virtualcollaboration in accordance with various embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods in accordance with various embodiments of thepresent disclosure overcome deficiencies in conventional approaches inrendering emails and chats on a computing device. Some embodimentsprovide an online and/or offline meeting system that utilizes a “scene”as a collaboration context and/or for collecting and grouping relatedtexts and multimedia based messages exchanged in discussions (e.g.,extended resources like the scene and audio/video contents can beorganized with session IDs, scene ID and timestamp, which can be usedfor database query), and causes the related texts and/or messages to bepresented to participants of an online and/or offline meeting in acinematic way. When an online meeting is over and the meeting session isended, participants can still make offline communications using thescene as the collaboration context. For example, a chat basecollaboration may be used to build up a collaboration between aninstructor and multiple students, or a celebrity and millions followers.

Further, the present technology solves problems in adding non-text basedcontent (e.g., image and video) into a text-based chat platform. On atraditional chat platform, newly arrived messages keep pushing oldmessages off a display screen of the chat platform, which makes itdifficult to implement a collaboration whiteboard on the chat platform.Some embodiments of the present technology solve the problems by using achat compositor to bring non-text based content naturally into a chatsession.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a scene-based collaboration 110 inaccordance with various embodiments. The scene-based collaboration canbe provided either online or offline, in this example, a scene-basedcollaboration includes a scene window for collaboration context (e.g.,scenes, texts, images, videos, and/or animations), a chat window, aninput bar, a timeline slider, and a participant row (e.g., for aparticipant to send private messages to other participants). Tags in thescene based collaboration include a standard tag and a drawing tag. Eachsession of the scene based collaboration may have one or more scenesthat can serve as a starter of a chat-like collaboration. In someembodiments, a scene in a scene-based-collaboration can serve as acontainer of related chat messages.

In a traditional text-based chat platform, as illustrated in FIGS. 1Band 1C, participants of a chat session may exchange non-text content,such as a drawing. However, after a participant shares the non-textbased content (e.g., an image), other participant(s) have to tap on thecontent to open and then review it.

Some implementations of the present technology can automatically providea whiteboard using a chat compositor when one participant of a chatsession shares non-text based content, as illustrated in FIGS. 1D and1E. In some instances, options can be provided to participants of thechat session to enable or disable the chat compositor such that aparticipant may engage or disengage discussions associated with thewhiteboard. In some embodiments, the chat compositor can run locally onuser devices of participants of the chat session. The whiteboard (e.g.,120 and 130) can be a container of non-text based chats or userinteractions. Each participant can manage the whiteboard and chatsession on his/her user device. For example, a participant may resize awhiteboard or a shared image (pan-and-scan), or add tags, lines, or textmessages. Participants' actions associated with the whiteboard or chatsession can be rendered together with corresponding timestamps via chatmessages using the chat compositor, as illustrated in FIG. 1E.

In FIG. 2 illustrates an example of inputting a chat message into ascene-based collaboration 200 in accordance with various embodiments. Inthis example, a user can touch a certain area to flip between a contextwindow and a chat window when a keyboard is active. A user may touch avoice recorder button to send a voice message instead of text, or toucha “±” button to add non-text based content such as, but not limited to,a picture, an emotion, a video, a symbol etc. In some embodiments, adynamic keyboard may be provided in response to a user touching an inputbar.

In some embodiments, a user may send a message to all participants byclicking a “send” button or a select group of participants of acollaboration session. For example, a user may highlight names ofintended participants. Once the intended participants are highlighted, amessage may be only sent to highlighted participants.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of context menu when a context window of ascene-based collaboration 300 is touched by a user in accordance withvarious embodiments. In this example, when a participant of a chatsession touches the context window, a context menu may be pop out toprovide options for the participant to select. For example, theparticipant may select “<” to go back to a previous scene in the sessionor select “+Tag” to add a voice or text based tag. Other options mayinclude, but are not limited to, “−Tag” for removing a tag beingtouched, “Draw” for adding a line-based annotation, “Erase” for removinga line, or “>” for switching to a next scene or adding a new scene.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of adding a tag on a virtual whiteboard400 in accordance with various embodiments. In this example, in responseto a “+Tag” being selected by a user from a context menu, asystem-assigned tag with an index (e.g., alphabetically) can be showedat the place being touched. An input keyboard (e.g., as illustrated inFIG. 2) may be popped up for text or voice inputs that are associatedwith the tag. In some embodiments, a location of a tag related to ascene can be a two-dimensional coordinate that is normalized to thescale of the corresponding scene.

In some embodiments, a system-generated message header (e.g., @A or@Tag-Index) can be provided in an input bar. A user can type in textmessages via a dynamic keyboard or by recording an audio for acorresponding tag (e.g., record audio by pressing a record button).

In response to a user sending a tag-related message, the dynamickeyboard can be replaced with a chat window. The tag-related message maybe broadcasted to all participants of the virtual whiteboard or asub-group designated by the user. In some embodiments, if a tag is touchbriefly (e.g., not holding over a predetermined period of time), a chatwindow can be switched to messages that are all related to the tag.

FIG. 5 illustrates two example tags on a virtual whiteboard 500 inaccordance with various embodiments. One type of tag is a standard tagwith a system-assigned index and/or user-added text and voice. Anothertype of tag is a drawing tag, which may be created from a context menuillustrated in FIG. 3. In some embodiments, a computing device may beconfigured to track a user's finger touches on a display and trace outthe touches to convert into a two-dimension geometric object (e.g., asquare, rectangle, or circle) or a one-dimension line or dot. Inresponse to a geometric object being built, an index to the tag can beassigned, which is a “B” in this example. In some embodiments, an“erase” button can be provided for a user to revise or remove ageometric object on a context window. In some embodiments, a user canadd text and/or voice messages associated with a tag or scene on acontext window.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example process of managing scenes in acollaboration session 600 in accordance with various embodiments. Inthis example, a participant of the collaboration session may use a “<”button to go back to a prior scene in the collaboration session or use a“>” button to maneuver to a new scene in the collaboration session oradd a new scene to the collaboration session. In response to a priorscene being brought back on a user screen, participants' discussions,annotations, and other activities associated with the prior scene can berestored on the user screen.

In some embodiments, a collaboration session may include one or morescenes, with each of them has more than one pictures, texts, videos,and/or rendering-based animations. In some embodiments, all participantsor a designated group of participants of a collaboration session may benotified when a new scene is added to the session.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example process 700 of managing resources within asession in accordance with various embodiments. In some embodiments, acollaboration session has a unique identification (ID). In someimplementations, each scene, each annotation tag or drawing in acollaboration session may also have an ID, respectively. In acollaboration session, an annotation tag may be associated with anormalized 2-dimensional coordinate related to a unique scene. In someembodiments, coordinates of a location on a scene can be captured on auser device by detecting touches, mouse clicks, or gesture controls froma user of the user device.

In some embodiments, each message of a scene-base-collaboration cancarry at least one of a collaboration session ID, a scene or sub-sceneID, and/or a normalized position coordinates related to a scene of thescene-base-collaboration as a discussion context.

FIG. 8A illustrates an example of a timeline basedresource-organization-data-structure 800 rendering content of ascene-based collaboration along a timeline in accordance with variousembodiments. A user may view content of a scene based collaboration thathappened at different sequences in time by selecting corresponding timeon the timeline. In some embodiments, a collaboration participant canassociate a tag with a coordinate related to a scene and addtext/picture/voice/video content that can be indexed by the tag. In someembodiments, content in a scene-based-collaboration can be played back(e.g., like a movie) to help users find out why and how certaindecisions were made back in time. A slide bar may be provided withpositions corresponding to corresponding timestamps of collaborationthreads of the scene-based collaboration.

In some embodiments, a chat compositor is used to bring whiteboardexperience to instant message (IM) applications. The chat compositor canbe a client-side software component on user devices or reside on aserver. A whiteboard that is rendered by the chat compositor can bedriven by users' IM communications associated with non-text content(e.g., static image, video animations, or user-created 2D/3Dgeometrics). For example, a whiteboard can be rendered in response to anew chat message being received. Non-text based chat messages can betransmitted as metadata attached to regular chat message packets.

In some embodiments, a chat compositor renders a whiteboard withtimeline based chat messages with three content layers that includes abase layer, a sandbox layer and an annotation layer. The base layer 810,as illustrated in FIG. 8B, can be a read-only content layer that is usedto render a static image or a clip of video from a participant of a chatsession. The sandbox layer 820, as illustrated in FIG. 8C, can includecontent from the base layer that is modified (e.g., resizing orclipping) by participants of the chat session. The annotation layer 830,as illustrated in FIG. 8D, can include metadata of chat message of thechat session. For example, the annotation layer can includeuser-generated 2D/3D geometries and texts. In this example, the chatcompositor can blend the sandbox layer 820 and the annotation layer 830to generate the whiteboard 130 for participants of the chat session, asillustrated in FIG. 1E.

Functions or options provided by the chat compositor may include, butare not limited to, resizing or panning a base layer image of awhiteboard that is illustrated in FIG. 8B, rendering annotationsincluding 2D/3D geometries and text on top of the base layer 810 that isillustrated in FIG. 1E, erasing or modifying participants' annotationsfrom the whiteboard, or playing back a particular whiteboard session. Insome embodiments, erasing a participant's annotation from the whiteboardmay be implemented in a two-step process. First, the annotation ismodified or erased from the annotation layer 830, as illustrated in FIG.8D. Second, content of the whiteboard can be rendered by combining themodified annotation layer 830 with the sandbox layer 820. In someembodiments, a whiteboard is rendered associated with metadata of chatmessage packets. A timestamp can be linked to each metadata. In responseto metadata being downloaded from a chat server and saved on a userdevice, the chat compositor can render an updated whiteboard by addingthe metadata through a linked timestamp.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example process 900 of managing resources within asession in accordance with various embodiments. In this example,collaboration sessions can be initiated over existing contacts fromparticipants' social circles. In some embodiments, a public session canbe a collaboration session which is visible (searchable) to all usersincluding non-friend users and/or anonymous users. A non-friend or ananonymous user may choose to “follow” a certain session so that he/shewill be notified whenever a public session is updated by an owner of thepublic session.

In some embodiments, a personal showcase may be provided. A personalshowcase can be a collaboration session between a session host and anypossible followers who may or may not in the host's personal contactlist. The personal showcase can be publicly accessed. An interestedaudience can choose to “follow” the showcase (session) and become a“follower”. In some embodiments, a personal showcase session can bebased upon a chat based collaboration with a scene-support option.Multimedia content (e.g., picture/video) provided by a content providercan be used as a collaboration topic. The personal showcase owner maychoose to modify or change the collaboration topic by posting new scenesto the current session or terminating the current scene to start a newsession.

For example, a celebrity user may have millions followers in real life.The celebrity user may want to send messages to his or her followerswithout building his/her own social circle. Some chat providers solvedthe problem by using a provider-follower model with a 140 characterslimit. The present disclosure allows a celebrity user to build a moreefficient personal showcase that can be publicly accessed like Twitter.People may choose to become followers of a celebrity by followinghis/her virtual chat based collaboration. Scene-support option(s) andmultimedia content may be added to the virtual chat based collaborationto enhance user experience.

Some embodiments provide drawing tags in a serial of vector based lines.Text, voice, or video can be associated with annotation tags anddrawings.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example scene based collaboration 1000 with oneor more email and chat participants in accordance with variousembodiments. In this example, when a live scene-based collaborationsession ends, an offline scene-base-collaboration can be started. Thecollaboration session can be sent to those email-only based contacts byconverting the chat protocol (e.g. XMPP) into email. In someembodiments, a converted email can have a scene and tag informationpresented in meta-data with pictures/text and attached audio/videoclips. The offline scene-base-collaboration can be carried on by emailand/or by converting from email back to chat based messages that areinserted back to the chat session that may be visible to allparticipants or a selected portion of participants. In some embodiments,an http link can be provided for scene based interactions (e.g., taggingtext based comments and/or a position based document context) such thatthe operation can be done over the PC or smartphone browser.

FIG. 15 illustrates an exemplary method 1500 of providing a virtualcollaboration in accordance with various embodiments. It should beunderstood that the exemplary method 1500 is presented solely forillustrative purposes and that in other methods in accordance with thepresent technology can include additional, fewer, or alternative stepsperformed in similar or alternative orders, or in parallel. Theexemplary method 1500 starts at step 1502.

At step 1502, non-text content is received on a user device or aparticipant of the virtual collaboration or a text chatting sessiondesires to share non-text content (e.g., as illustrated in FIGS. 1-10).A collaboration context of the virtual collaboration can be generatedbased at least in part upon the non-text content, at step 1504. In someembodiments, the collaboration context is generated using a chatcompositor. Texts and multimedia-based messages (e.g., as illustrated inFIGS. 1-10) that are associated with the non-text content during thevirtual collaboration can be grouped into a plurality of subgroups, atstep 1508. Each of the texts and multimedia-based messages can be linkedto a timestamp and rendered along a timeline. At step 1510, the textsand multimedia-based messages in the plurality of subgroups arepresented to corresponding participants of the virtual collaboration.The exemplary method 1500 ends at step 1512.

FIG. 11 illustrates an example of a virtual collaboration system 1110for providing a virtual collaboration in accordance with variousembodiments. The virtual collaboration system 1110 communicates with theclient computing devices 1102 via the network 1104. Although only a fewtypes of the client device are shown in FIG. 11, it should be understoodthat various types of electronic or computing device that capable ofcapturing, receiving and/or processing images in accordance with variousembodiments discussed herein. These client devices can include, forexample desktop PCs, laptop computers, tablet computers, personal dataassistants (PDAs), smart phones, portable media file players, e-bookreaders, portable computers, head-mounted displays, interactive kiosks,mobile phones, net books, single-board computers (SBCs), embeddedcomputer systems, wearable computers (e.g., watches or glasses), gamingconsoles, home-theater PCs (HTPCs). TVs, DVD players, digital cableboxes, digital video recorders (DVRs), computer systems capable ofrunning a web-browser, or a combination of any two or more of these. Thecomputing device may use operating systems that include, but are notlimited to, Android, Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), iPhone OS(iOS), Linus, OS X, Unix-like Real-time Operating System (e.g., QNX).Microsoft Windows, Window Phone. and IBM z/OS. The computing device 702may have one or more image capture elements (not shown), such as one ormore cameras or camera sensors, to capture images and/or videos. The oneor more image capture elements may include a charge-coupled device(CCD), an active pixel sensor in complementary metai-oxide-semiconductor(CMOS) or N-type metal-oxide-semiconductor (NMOS), an infrared orultrasonic image sensor, or an image sensor utilizing other type ofimage capturing technologies.

The virtual collaboration system 1110 may include a virtualcollaboration module 1130 and a database 1120. The virtual collaborationmodule 1130 can be operable to render a virtual collaboration and thedatabase 1120 is configured to store content, including text-based andnon-text based content, that is associated with the virtualcollaboration. In some embodiments, rendering a virtual collaborationcan be performed partially or entirely on the client computing devices1102.

FIGS. 12A and 12B illustrate front and back views, respectively, of anexample electronic computing device 1200 that can be used in accordancewith various embodiments. Although a portable computing device (e.g., asmartphone, an electronic book reader, or tablet computer) is shown, itshould be understood that any device capable of receiving and processinginput can be used in accordance with various embodiments discussedherein. The devices are capable of receiving, displaying or playingstreaming media files in accordance with various embodiments discussedherein. The devices can include, for example, desktop PCs, laptopcomputers, tablet computers, personal data assistants (PDAs), smartphones, portable media players, e-book readers, portable computers,head-mounted displays, interactive kiosks, mobile phones, net books,single-board computers (SBCs), embedded computer systems, wearablecomputers (e.g., watches or glasses), gaming consoles, home-theater PCs(HTPCs), TVs, DVD players, digital cable boxes, digital video recorders(DVRs), computer systems capable of running a web-browser, among others.

In this example, the computing device 1200 has a display screen 1202(e.g., an LCD element) operable to display information or image contentto one or more users or viewers of the device. The display screen ofsome embodiments displays information (e.g., streaming media file) tothe viewer facing the display screen (e.g., on the same side of thecomputing device as the display screen). The computing device in thisexample can include one or more imaging elements, in this exampleincluding two image capture elements 1204 on the front of the device andat least one image capture element 1210 on the back of the device. Itshould be understood, however, that image capture elements could also,or alternatively, be placed on the sides or corners of the device, andthat there can be any appropriate number of capture elements of similaror different types. Each image capture element 1204 and 1210 may be, forexample, a camera, a charge-coupled device (CCD), a motion detectionsensor or an infrared sensor, or other image capturing technology.

As discussed, the device can use the images (e.g., still or video)captured from the imaging elements 1204 and 1210 to generate athree-dimensional simulation of the surrounding environment (e.g., avirtual reality of the surrounding environment for display on thedisplay element of the device). Further, the device can utilize outputsfrom at least one of the image capture elements 1204 and 1210 to assistin determining the location and/or orientation of a user and inrecognizing nearby persons, objects, or locations. For example, if theuser is holding the device, the captured image information can beanalyzed (e.g., using mapping information about a particular area) todetermine the approximate location and/or orientation of the user. Thecaptured image information may also be analyzed to recognize nearbypersons, objects, or locations (e.g., by matching parameters or elementsfrom the mapping information).

The computing device can also include at least one microphone or otheraudio capture elements capable of capturing audio data, such as wordsspoken by a user of the device, music being hummed by a person near thedevice, or audio being generated by a nearby speaker or other suchcomponent, although audio elements are not required in at least somedevices. In this example there are three microphones, one microphone1208 on the front side, one microphone 1212 on the back, and onemicrophone 1206 on or near a top or side of the device. In some devicesthere may be only one microphone, while in other devices there might beat least one microphone on each side and/or corner of the device, or inother appropriate locations.

The device 1200 in this example also includes one or more orientation-or position-determining elements 1218 operable to provide informationsuch as a position, direction, motion, or orientation of the device.These elements can include, for example, accelerometers, inertialsensors, electronic gyroscopes, and electronic compasses.

The example device also includes at least one computing mechanism 1214,such as may include at least one wired or wireless component operable tocommunicate with one or more electronic devices. The device alsoincludes a power system 1216, such as may include a battery operable tobe recharged through al plug-in approaches, or through other approachessuch as capacitive charging through proximity with a power mat or othersuch device. Various other elements and/or combinations are possible aswell within the scope of various embodiments.

FIG. 13 illustrates a set of basic components of an electronic computingdevice 1300 such as the device 1200 described with respect to FIG. 12.In this example, the device includes at least one processing unit 1302for executing instructions that can be stored in a memory device orelement 1304. As would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art,the device can include many types of memory, data storage, orcomputer-readable media, such as a first data storage for programinstructions for execution by the processing unit(s) 1302, the same orseparate storage can be used for images or data, a removable memory canbe available for sharing information with other devices, and any numberof computing approaches can be available for sharing with other devices.

The device typically will include some type of display element 1306,such as a touch screen, electronic ink (e-ink), organic light emittingdiode (OLED) or liquid crystal display (LCD), although devices such asportable media players might convey information via other means, such asthrough audio speakers. The display element 1306 is capable ofdisplaying streaming media files or other information to viewers facingthe dispiay element 1306.

As discussed, the device in many embodiments will include at least oneimaging/audio element 1308, such as one or more cameras that are able tocapture images of the surrounding environment and that are able to imagea user, people, or objects in the vicinity of the device. The imagecapture element can include any appropriate technology, such as a CCDimage capture element having a sufficient resolution, focal range, andviewable area to capture an image of the user when the user is operatingthe device. Methods for capturing images using a camera element with acomputing device are well known in the art and will not be discussedherein in detail. It should be understood that image capture can beperformed using a single image, multiple images, periodic imaging,continuous image capturing, image streaming, etc. Further, a device caninclude the ability to start and/or stop image capture, such as whenreceiving a command from a user, application, or other device.

The example computing device 1300 also includes at least oneorientation/motion determining element 1310 able to determine and/ordetect orientation and/or movement of the device. Such an element caninclude, for example, an accelerometer or gyroscope operable to detectmovement (e.g., rotational movement, angular displacement, tilt,position, orientation, motion along a non-linear path, etc.) of thedevice 1300. An orientation determining element can also include anelectronic or digital compass, which can indicate a direction (e.g.,north or south) in which the device is determined to be pointing (e.g.,with respect to a primary axis or other such aspect).

As discussed, the device in many embodiments will include at least apositioning element 1312 for determining a location of the device (orthe user of the device). A positioning element can include or comprise aGPS or similar location-determining elements operable to determinerelative coordinates for a position of the device. As mentioned above,positioning elements may include wireless access points, base stations,etc. that may either broadcast location information or enabletriangulation of signals to determine the location of the device. Otherpositioning elements may include QR codes, barcodes, RFID tags, NFCtags, etc. that enable the device to detect and receive locationinformation or identifiers that enable the device to obtain the locationinformation (e.g., by mapping the identifiers to a correspondinglocation). Various embodiments can include one or more such elements inany appropriate combination.

As mentioned above, some embodiments use the element(s) to track thelocation of a device. Upon determining an initial position of a device(e.g., using GPS), the device of some embodiments may keep track of thelocation of the device by using the element(s), or in some instances, byusing the orientation determining element(s) as mentioned above, or acombination thereof. As should be understood, the algorithms ormechanisms used for determining a position and/or orientation can dependat least in part upon the selection of elements available to the device.In some embodiments, the example computing device 1300 may also includea low power, low resolution imaging element to capture image data. Thelow resolution imaging element can transmit the captured image data overa low bandwidth bus, such as an 12C bus, to a low power processor, suchas a PIC-class processor. The PIC processor may also communicate withother components of the computing device 1300, such as OrientationMotion Element 1310, etc. The PIC processor can analyze the image datafrom the low resolution imaging element and other components of thecomputing device 1300 to determine whether the head motion likelycorresponds to a recognized head gesture. If the PIC processordetermines that the head motion likely corresponds to a recognize headgesture, the PIC processor can enable other image element to activatehigh resolution image capture and/or main processor to analyze thecapture high resolution image data.

The example device also includes one or more wireless components 1314operable to communicate with one or more electronic devices within acomputing range of the particular wireless channel. The wireless channelcan be any appropriate channel used to enable devices to communicatewirelessly, such as Bluetooth, cellular, NFC, or Wi-Fi channels. Itshould be understood that the device can have one or more al wiredcommunications connections as known in the art.

The device also includes a power system 1316, such as may include abattery operable to be recharged through al plug-in approaches, orthrough other approaches such as capacitive charging through proximitywith a power mat or other such device. Various other elements and/orcombinations are possible as well within the scope of variousembodiments.

In some embodiments the device can include at least one additional inputdevice 1318 able to receive al input from a user. This al input caninclude, for example, a push button, touch pad, touch screen, wheel,joystick, keyboard, mouse, keypad, or any other such device or elementwhereby a user can input a command or a request for additional productinformation to the device. These I/O devices could even be connected bya wireless infrared or Bluetooth or other link as well in someembodiments. Some devices also can include a microphone or other audiocapture element that accepts voice or other audio commands. For example,a device might not include any buttons at all, but might be controlledonly through a combination of visual and audio commands, such that auser can control the device without having to be in contact with thedevice.

As discussed, different approaches can be implemented in variousenvironments in accordance with the described embodiments. For example,FIG. 14 illustrates an example of an environment 1400 for implementingaspects in accordance with various embodiments. As will be appreciated,although a Web-based environment is used for purposes of explanation,different environments may be used, as appropriate, to implement variousembodiments. The system includes an electronic computing device 1402,which can include any appropriate device operable to send and receiverequests, messages or information over an appropriate network 1004 andconvey information back to a user of the device. Examples of suchcomputing devices include personal computers, cell phones, handheldmessaging devices, laptop computers, set-top boxes, personal dataassistants, electronic book readers and thelike. The network can includeany appropriate network, including an intranet, the Internet, a cellularnetwork, a local area network or any other such network or combinationthereof. The network could be a “push” network, a “pull” network, or acombination thereof. In a “push” network, one or more of the serverspush out data to the computing device. In a “pull” network, one or moreof the servers send data to the computing device upon request for thedata by the computing device. Components used for such a system candepend at least in part upon the type of network and/or environmentselected. Protocols and components for communicating via such a networkare well known and will not be discussed herein in detail. Computingover the network can be enabled via wired or wireless connections andcombinations thereof. In this example, the network includes theInternet, as the environment includes a Web server 1406 for receivingrequests and serving content in response thereto, although for othernetworks, an alternative device serving a similar purpose could be used,as would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art.

The illustrative environment includes at least one application server1408 and a data store 1010. It should be understood that there can beseveral application servers, layers or other elements, processes orcomponents, which may be chained or otherwise configured, which caninteract to perform tasks such as obtaining data from an appropriatedata store. As used herein, the term “data store” refers to any deviceor combination of devices capable of storing, accessing and retrievingdata, which may include any combination and number of data servers,databases, data storage devices and data storage media, in any standard,distributed or clustered environment. The application server 1408 caninclude any appropriate hardware and software for integrating with thedata store 1410 as needed to execute aspects of one or more applicationsfor the computing device and handling a majority of the data access andbusiness logic for an application. The application server providesaccess control services in cooperation with the data store and is ableto generate content such as text, graphics, audio and/or video to betransferred to the user, which may be served to the user by the Webserver 1406 in the form of HTML, XML or another appropriate structuredlanguage in this example. The handling of all requests and responses, aswell as the delivery of content between the computing device 1402 andthe application server 1408, can be handled by the Web server 1406. Itshould be understood that the Web and application servers are notrequired and are merely example components, as structured code discussedherein can be executed on any appropriate device or host machine asdiscussed elsewhere herein.

The data store 1410 can include several separate data tables, databasesor other data storage mechanisms and media for storing data relating toa particular aspect. For example, the data store illustrated includesmechanisms for storing content (e.g., production data) 1412 and userinformation 1416, which can be used to serve content for the productionside. The user information 1416 may include user preference, historicaldata, user demographic data, and audio system of the user devicesassociated with users. Demographic data of users may include user age,user gender, user educational background, user marital status, userincome level, user ethnicity, user postal code, user primary language,or user spending habit. The audio system may include headphone (e.g.,earphone, ear bud, and the like), speaker (e.g., tablet speaker, bluetooth speaker, computer speaker, bookshelf speaker, center-channelspeaker, floor speaker, in-wall and in-ceiling speaker, outdoor speaker,sound bar, portable speaker, and woofer/sub-woofer speaker), or varioustypes of audio amplifiers. The data store is also shown to include amechanism for storing log or session data 1414. It should be understoodthat there can be many other aspects that may need to be stored in thedata store, such as page image information and access rightsinformation, which can be stored in any of the above listed mechanismsas appropriate or in additional mechanisms in the data store 1410. Thedata store 1410 is operable, through logic associated therewith, toreceive instructions from the application server 1408 and obtain, updateor otherwise process data in response thereto. In one example, a usermight submit a search request for a certain type of item. In this case,the data store might access the user information to verify the identityof the user and can access the catalog detail information to obtaininformation about items of that type. The information can then bereturned to the user, such as in a results listing on a Web page thatthe user is able to view via a browser on the user device 1402.Information for a particular item of interest can be viewed in adedicated page or window of the browser.

Each server typically will include an operating system that providesexecutable program instructions for the general administration andoperation of that server and typically will include computer-readablemedium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor of theserver, allow the server to perform its intended functions. Suitableimplementations for the operating system and general functionality ofthe servers are known or commercially available and are readilyimplemented by persons having ordinary skill in the art, particularly inlight of the disclosure herein.

The environment in one embodiment is a distributed computing environmentutilizing several computer systems and components that areinterconnected via computing links, using one or more computer networksor direct connections. However, it will be appreciated by those ofordinary skill in the art that such a system could operate equally wellin a system having fewer or a greater number of components than areillustrated in FIG. 14. Thus, the depiction of the system 1400 in FIG.14 should be taken as being illustrative in nature and not limiting tothe scope of the disclosure.

The various embodiments can be further implemented in a wide variety ofoperating environments, which in some cases can include one or more usercomputers or computing devices which can be used to operate any of anumber of applications. User or computing devices can include any of anumber of general purpose personal computers, such as desktop or laptopcomputers running a standard operating system, as well as cellular,wireless and handheld devices running mobile software and capable ofsupporting a number of networking and messaging protocols. Such a systemcan also include a number of workstations running any of a variety ofcommercially-available operating systems and other known applicationsfor purposes such as development and database management. These devicescan also include other electronic devices, such as dummy terminals,thin-clients, gaming systems and other devices capable of communicatingvia a network.

Most embodiments utilize at least one network that would be familiar tothose skilled in the art for supporting communications using any of avariety of commercially-availabie protocols, such as TCP/IP, OSI, FTP,UPnP, NFS, CIFS and AppleTalk. The network can be, for example, a localarea network, a wide-area network, a virtual private network, theInternet, an intranet, an extranet, a public switched telephone network,an infrared network, a wireless network and any combination thereof.

In embodiments utilizing a Web server, the Web server can run any of avariety of server or mid-tier applications, including HTTP servers, FTPservers, CGI servers, data servers, Java servers and businessapplication servers. The server(s) may also be capable of executingprograms or scripts in response requests from user devices, such as byexecuting one or more Web applications that may be implemented as one ormore scripts or programs written in any programming language, such asJava®, C, C # or C++ or any scripting language, such as Perl, Python orTCL, as well as combinations thereof. The server(s) may also includedatabase servers, including without limitation those commerciallyavailable from Oracle®, Microsoft®, Sybase® and IBM®.

The environment can include a variety of data stores and other memoryand storage media as discussed above. These can reside in a variety oflocations, such as on a storage medium local to (and/or resident in) oneor more of the computers or remote from any or all of the computersacross the network. In a particular set of embodiments, the informationmay reside in a storage-area network (SAN) familiar to those skilled inthe art. Similarly, any necessary files for performing the functionsattributed to the computers, servers or other network devices may bestored locally and/or remotely, as appropriate. Where a system includescomputerized devices, each such device can include hardware elementsthat may be electrically coupled via a bus, the elements including, forexample, at least one central processing unit (CPU), at least one inputdevice (e.g., a mouse, keyboard, controller, touch-sensitive displayelement or keypad) and at least one output device (e.g., a displaydevice, printer or speaker). Such a system may also include one or morestorage devices, such as disk drives, optical storage devices andsolid-state storage devices such as random access memory (RAM) orread-only memory (ROM), as well as removable media devices, memorycards, flash cards, etc.

Such devices can also include a computer-readable storage media reader,a communications device (e.g., a modem, a network card (wireless orwired), an infrared computing device) and working memory as describedabove. The computer-readable storage media reader can be connected with,or configured to receive, a computer-readable storage mediumrepresenting remote, local, fixed and/or removable storage devices aswell as storage media for temporarily and/or more permanentlycontaining, storing, transmitting and retrieving computer-readableinformation. The system and various devices also typically will includea number of software applications, modules, services or other elementslocated within at least one working memory device, including anoperating system and application programs such as a client applicationor Web browser. It should be appreciated that alternate embodiments mayhave numerous variations from that described above. For example,customized hardware might also be used and/or particular elements mightbe implemented in hardware, software (including portable software, suchas applets) or both. Further, connection to other computing devices suchas network input/output devices may be employed.

Storage media and computer readable media for containing code, orportions of code, can include any appropriate media known or used in theart, including storage media and computing media, such as but notlimited to volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable mediaimplemented in any method or technology for storage and/or transmissionof information such as computer readable instructions, data structures,program modules or other data, including RAM, ROM. EEPROM, flash memoryor other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disk (DVD) orother optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic diskstorage or other magnetic storage devices or any other medium which canbe used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by asystem device. Based on the disclosure and teachings provided herein, aperson of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate other ways and/ormethods to implement the various embodiments.

The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in anillustrative rather than a restrictive sense. It will, however, beevident that various modifications and changes may be made thereuntowithout departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention asset forth in the claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method for providing avirtual collaboration, comprising: receiving a non-text content;generating at least one collaborative session of the virtualcollaboration based at least in part upon the non-text content, the atleast one collaborative session enabling any of one or more participantsof the virtual collaboration to point to a location on the at least onecollaborative session, and conduct a plurality of operations includingcommenting or revising the non-text content, wherein each drawing of theat least one collaborative session is associated with a correspondingtimestamp; grouping multimedia-based messages during the virtualcollaboration, into a plurality of sub-groups, the multimedia-basedmessages associated with the non-text content; causing themultimedia-based messages in the plurality of sub-groups to be presentedon at least one computing device of the one or more participants of thevirtual collaboration, wherein the virtual collaboration presented on adisplay of the at least one computing device comprises a base layer anda sandbox layer spanning the entirety of the virtual collaboration,wherein the base layer includes the non-text content, wherein thesandbox layer includes content of the non-text content and enables atleast two participants of the at least one collaborative sessions tomodify the non-text content; and playing back the at least onecollaborative session of the virtual collaboration based at least upontimestamps associated with drawings of the at least one collaborativesession.
 2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein each ofthe at least one collaborative session has a session identification(ID), the non-text content has a scene ID, and each drawing of the atleast one collaborative session has a drawing ID.
 3. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the playing back the atleast one collaborative session of the virtual collaboration comprisesproviding a slide bar for a user of the computing device to view acorresponding drawing associated with a specific timestamp.
 4. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the at least onecollaborative session enables an annotation tag associated with a2-dimensional coordinate of the location at the at least onecollaborative session, wherein the annotation tag of the at least onecollaborative session has an annotation ID.
 5. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 4, wherein the at least one collaborative sessionfurther enables text messages associated with the at least onecollaborative session, wherein each text message of the at least onecollaborative session has a text ID.
 6. The computer-implemented methodof claim 5, wherein the at least one collaborative session furtherenables adding an annotation tag associated with the at least onecollaborative session, wherein each annotation tag of the at least onecollaborative session is associated with a normalized 2-dimensionalcoordinate in relation to the non-text content.
 7. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the virtualcollaboration presented on a display of the computing device furthercomprises an annotation layer, and wherein the annotation layer includesmetadata of geometries and text messages of the at least onecollaborative session.
 8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7,further comprising providing an option for a user of the computingdevice to resize or pan the base layer, render an annotation thatincludes a 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional geometry object or a text ontop of the base layer, or erase or modify an annotation from aparticipant of the at least one collaborative session.
 9. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: determiningthat the at least one collaborative session has ended, and enabling anoffline scene-based collaboration.
 10. A system, comprising: aprocessor; and a computer-readable medium storing instructions that,when executed by the processor, cause the system to perform operationscomprising: receiving a non-text content; generating at least onecollaborative session of the virtual collaboration based at least inpart upon the non-text content, the at least one collaborative sessionenabling any of one or more participants of the virtual collaboration topoint to a location on the at least one collaborative session, andconduct a plurality of operations including commenting or revising thenon-text content, wherein each drawing of the at least one collaborativesession is associated with a corresponding timestamp; groupingmultimedia-based messages during the virtual collaboration, into aplurality of sub-groups, the multimedia-based messages associated withthe non-text content; causing the multimedia-based messages in theplurality of sub-groups to be presented on at least one computing deviceof the one or more participants of the virtual collaboration, whereinthe virtual collaboration presented on a display of the at least onecomputing device comprises a base layer and a sandbox layer spanning theentirety of the virtual collaboration, wherein the base layer includesthe non-text content, wherein the sandbox layer includes content of thenon-text content and enables at least two participants of the at leastone collaborative sessions to modify the non-text content; and playingback the at least one collaborative session of the virtual collaborationbased at least upon timestamps associated with drawings of the at leastone collaborative session.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein each ofthe at least one collaborative session has a session identification(ID), the non-text content has a scene ID, and each drawing of the atleast one collaborative session has a drawing ID.
 12. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the playing back the at least one collaborativesession of the virtual collaboration comprises providing a slide bar fora user of the computing device to view a corresponding drawingassociated with a specific timestamp.
 13. The system of claim 11,wherein the at least one collaborative session enables an annotation tagassociated with a 2-dimensional coordinate of the location at the atleast one collaborative session, wherein the annotation tag of the atleast one collaborative session has an annotation ID.
 14. The system ofclaim 13, wherein the at least one collaborative session further enablestext messages associated with the at least one collaborative session,wherein each text message of the at least one collaborative session hasa text ID.
 15. The system of claim 14, wherein the at least onecollaborative session further enables adding an annotation tagassociated with the at least one collaborative session, wherein eachannotation tag of the at least one collaborative session is associatedwith a normalized 2-dimensional coordinate in relation to the non-textcontent.
 16. The system of claim 10, wherein the virtual collaborationpresented on a display of the computing device further comprises anannotation layer, and wherein the annotation layer includes metadata ofgeometries and text messages of the at least one collaborative session.17. The system of claim 16, wherein the operations further compriseproviding an option for a user of the computing device to resize or panthe base layer, render an annotation that includes a 2-dimensional or3-dimensional geometry object or a text on top of the base layer, orerase or modify an annotation from a participant of the at least onecollaborative session.
 18. The system of claim 10, wherein theoperations further comprise determining that the at least onecollaborative session has ended, and enabling an offline scene-basedcollaboration.
 19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage mediumincluding instructions that, when executed by at least one processor ofa computing system, cause the computing system to perform operationscomprising: receiving a non-text content; generating at least onecollaborative session of the virtual collaboration based at least inpart upon the non-text content, the at least one collaborative sessionenabling any of one or more participants of the virtual collaboration topoint to a location on the at least one collaborative session, andconduct a plurality of operations including commenting or revising thenon-text content, wherein each drawing of the at least one collaborativesession is associated with a corresponding timestamp; groupingmultimedia-based messages during the virtual collaboration, into aplurality of sub-groups, the multimedia-based messages associated withthe non-text content; causing the multimedia-based messages in theplurality of sub-groups to be presented on at least one computing deviceof the one or more participants of the virtual collaboration, whereinthe virtual collaboration presented on a display of the at least onecomputing device comprises a base layer and a sandbox layer spanning theentirety of the virtual collaboration, wherein the base layer includesthe non-text content, wherein the sandbox layer includes content of thenon-text content and enables at least two participants of the at leastone collaborative sessions to modify the non-text content; and playingback the at least one collaborative session of the virtual collaborationbased at least upon timestamps associated with drawings of the at leastone collaborative session.
 20. The non-transitory computer-readablestorage medium of claim 19, wherein each of the at least onecollaborative session has a session identification (ID), the non-textcontent has a scene ID, and each drawing of the at least onecollaborative session has a drawing ID.